Shamrocks, Lucky Leprechauns, Guinness, Bulmers and Castles, Castles and more Castles

We had the most fantastic time in Ireland! We had beautiful weather, it only rained on us a few times. We adjusted to Irish time quite easily. Our B&B's were all really nice and clean and the hosts were just fabulous. They were always full of tips and ideas for fun things to do.

The breakfasts were so yummy and included with your stay. I usually ordered oatmeal, at the B&B in Dingle they put Bailey's in my oatmeal!! Bailey's in oatmeal is super yummy! Jered had the full Irish breakfast at least six times, I only had it once. Too much food for me. Typical Irish breakfast is 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 slices bacon, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, blood sausage and another sausage that looked some sort of haggis. Jered ate everything on the plate except the tomatoes of course, I ate those. Yes even the blood sausage and haggis! The one time I ordered the traditional Irish, I left those two things on the plate and Jered helped me eat the rest.

What was it like driving on the left side of the road and sitting on the right side of the car? Well I couldn't tell you, I didn't do any driving! Jered did all the driving (Thanks babe!). We rented just a small car. A 4-door little Nissan hatchback. Thank goodness it was so small because the roads feel even smaller. I had to sit on the left side of the car, next to the stone fences and bushes. There were quite few moments, especially in the first couple of days, where I felt like those fences were coming right into the car to have a seat on my lap!

Ireland does have freeways, we used those a few times but they are more for commuting long distances. Mostly to see all the sights you have to be on the smaller roads. The M roads are the freeways. N roads are smaller freeways. R roads sometimes have stripes and feel like there could be room for two cars until a big truck or bus is coming at you and then you start looking for a wide spot so you can swerve over to the curb as you pass each other. L roads are the most rural, no stripes, looks like a single lane even though its not and when you find yourself on those roads you pray no other vehicle will come your way! We spent most of our time on the R and L roads praying and hoping no one would be coming our way and when they did, praying and hoping there was room enough for both us. :)

The first morning we were driving to this little small village to have breakfast before we went to our first tourist stop. We had arrived at 5:15am Ireland time, so it was still dark. We were driving down this little small road, it was dark and there were huge trees making a canopy over the road. We turn a corner and all I see is huge bright lights of a doubledecker bus. Now remember we had already been awake for about 18 hours. We arrived in Dublin on Friday morning, we left Portland on Thursday morning so we completely missed Thursday night. We were all a little delirious to say the least. Ok so I'm staring at the headlights of the doubledecker and it looks like its coming right at us. I start slapping Jered's leg and screaming, "You're on the wrong side of the road!! You're on the wrong side of the road!! You're on the wrong side of the road!!" Jered is yelling back, "No I'm on not! No I'm not! No I"m not!" After the bus went by I felt like my heart had jumped right out of my chest! We had a good laugh and Jered made me promise to put the story in this blog. :)

There were a few times he actually was on the wrong side of the road but I managed to handle those much more calmly and would usually just say, "Dude, you're on the wrong side of the road." He would say, "Sh*t!" and swerve back over. :)

We spent a lot of our time in pubs, especially in the evenings. Pubs to the Irish are a place to relax, meet up with friends and have good craic (conversation). They're not bars like we have here. They're basically a restaurant but the bar is not separate. They were all very kid-friendly and most of them had nightly music. We all loved that! Ashlyn even got up and danced a few times. If she caught me or Jered watching her though she would say, "Stop looking at me Daddy/Mommy! You're making me nervous!" Not sure where she came up with that one!

Here's a few pictures, we're still combing through the 1200 we took and are planning a slideshow. Hopefully we'll have that ready soon! I'm also planning a few more Ireland posts, there is just too much to say and share.

 Daddy being silly!

 Family photo before we take off on day 1. We all look pretty

tired but we went for it and put in a full day of travel, sites and fun.

 Gardens of Powerscourt. Beautiful! A great first tourist stop

because it gave us the chance to walk around in the fresh

air and beautiful sunshine.

 Family photo, it was really sunny and Ashlyn didn't have her

sunglasses with her.

 Ashlyn's first castle/tower. She was looking for a 

princess. Didn't find one but did find the door to the

stairs that took us up to the top. She was up those stairs

before Jered or I even realized!

 Pretty waterfall

 Self portrait, trying different modes on the camera

 When you see a big tall rock sticking out of the ground

you should definitely pull over, jump up on top and 

make your wife take your picture!

 Then help your daughter up so she can have her picture

taken also. (He is standing just out of frame, so he

can catch her if needed)

 Our first roadside sheep (seen on the Old Military Hwy)! 

The next day our B&B host told us 

(please say this w/ an Irish accent), 

"Oh, you should never find yourself up there!"

It was a very tiny road! 

 Serious bed-head! Ashlyn slept from PowersCourt to Glendalough.

She bounced right back though! 

 Daddy was trying to do a cool pic but its difficult to get 

the 4 yr old to cooperate and do exactly what you want!

 First night, walking to dinner in Kilkenny. This was a clothing

shop and of course we had to our picture!

 Starting out on Day 2, looking much more rested

 Ruins in the backyard, totally normal right?

 Roadside ruins, we saw hundreds of these! This one

was most likely an old church. 

 Donkey Sanctuary, Day 3. This was super cool! We

weren't sure what to expect but they blew us away. This place

was huge and there were hundreds of donkeys. This was the 

first one Ashlyn had a conversation with. 

 Now that's a whole lot of ASS! HeHe!

 Self portrait fail, only got half my face.

 Daddy and Ashlyn

 We were at Killarney Nat'l Park and Muckross House. 

Do you see the purple horse in her arms? 

His name is Minimus, this was the last we ever saw of Minimus.

The first casualty on our Ireland trip. 

 Family portrait by the lake. 

(We're pretty sure this is where we lost Minimus)

Muckross House, built in 1843 and Queen Victoria 

visited in 1861. Didn't look as fancy inside as I expected.

Beautiful gardens, lawns and lake.

Ireland, we miss you already! We will be back, we promise!

Busy but wonderful summer.....

Its been such a great summer! The weather has been fantastic! We've been taking advantage of the nice weather on our stay home days (my day off during the week.). We've been going to the park, doing a little yard work, watering flowers. Ashlyn loves to water the flowers! Sometimes she gets more water on the sidewalk or the grass than on the actual flowers but oh well! At school they take the kids on walks to the park and nature walks. She loves it when she gets to go to Normandale Park. 

Ashlyn has grown SO much this summer! She went from a size 8-1/2 to a 10-1/2 shoe. We've bought a lot of shoes this summer! She's still squeezing her feet into some of her summer sandals, she says "its ok if my toes hang over Mom, its ok!"  I tried some jeans on her the other day that we bought just last winter. I wanted to make sure they fit her for our trip to Ireland. She must've grown a good 2-inches because they're a little short. Good thing she'll be tucking them into her Bogs anyway!  

Her language and vocabulary has also exploded this summer. Sometimes the way she talks, she sounds like an adult! She asks questions about everything and I mean everything. :) She's really into driving and switching lanes and taking exits. She wanted to know why some lines are yellow, some are white, some are dashes. She'll see a dashed line and tell me, "Mommy, lets switch lanes!" She's all about direction too. Which way is it to school? Which way is it home? Have been this way before? Where does the sun rise? Where does the moon rise? 

We've been practicing sight words at home. Sight words are words that schools and teachers expect kids to recognize just by looking at them, not by sounding them out. Are, Am, Away, All, etc etc. She's doing really good and gets really excited when she gets them all right. Right now she probably knows about 10-15 words, but we've still got a whole stack to get through! She loves to read so we read a lot of stories at home. Lately its been a lot of princess stories. She likes for us to read to her then she 'reads' the story to herself. Sometimes if she's in her room and its too quiet, I think I'm going to find her doing something naughty but nope, she's just sitting there reading her books to all her stuffies (her stuffed animals). 

Jered and I have been trying really hard this summer to give her more responsibilities, even though some of it is just easier do ourselves. Its her job to feed the dogs at night when we get home from work and its her job to keep her room clean and organized. I'm happy if everything's just off the floor. If she doesn't pick them up, then we go in her room with a bag and those toys get to stay in Mommy and Daddy's room until she earns them back. At first I don't think she really cared but then a couple of times she lost things she really loved. Like her Disney Princess book or her Princess Celestia My Little Pony. When she does really well she earns extra stories at night and that makes her super excited!

She loves to "help" so she'll swiffer or help unload the dishwasher, help me hang clothes on the hangers. Also she has to make sure her clothes are right side out when they go in her dirty basket. Mommy does not flip clothes. They go in to the washer the way they go into the basket. Her last load of laundry was pretty much all inside out, she spent a while helping me flip them right side out! :) Now she says she's figured out a way to take her clothes off and keep them right side out!

A few pics:

McKenzie, Ashlyn and Brady: Ready to go to the pool!!

Playing in the arcade Ice Cream truck

Ashlyn and McKenzie saying goodbye to

Great Wolf Lodge

Ashlyn and Brady

Of course we went to Cabela's!

Playing on the dance floor with Paisley

Looking sweet!

This is Ashlyn taking a picture of her Unicorn pillow pet. 

Her name is Rainbow and she lights up the ceiling at night.

Ponies, wave pools and water slides.......

I bought a Groupon a few months ago for a 1 hour pony lesson. It was all the way out in Newberg but I figured it would be worth it. Its a place called Oregon Dream Ponies and I highly recommend it if you don't mind the drive.  http://www.oregondreamponies.com/Pony_Rentals.php  The couple that run it are awesome! Cowgirl Kim and Cowboy Bob :) Cowgirl Kim used to be a middle school math teacher and you can tell. She was great with the kids. Ashlyn can sometimes be so shy but she wasn't at all with Cowgirl Kim. There was just one other little girl there so it was really perfect. It was a full lesson about how to appropriately introduce yourself to a horse, how to comb the horse and the mane, how to saddle the horse. Then it was riding time! They have a large paddock so Cowgirl Kim lead Ashlyn around on her pony Smokey in big circles, over some logs, around some barrels. They did airplane with their arms to learn their balance. They played a cool game where they leaned over and picked up an orange cone off the barrels. Ashlyn had a huge smile the whole time! She loved it and wanted to stay the whole day. We'll definitely go back!

Jered ran in a relay race called the RAGNAR last month. Its very similar to the Hood to Coast race but its held in Washington. He had a lot of fun but I'll never understand why he does it! If he trained a bit more I'd understand. I just don't want him to break himself! Ashlyn and I kinda like him and we'd like to keep him around for a while! :)

What else have we been up to? Well, we helped our friends out with catering a wedding a few Saturdays ago. Wow, was that a lot of work! I would not want that job that's for sure!

We also spent some time at Grandma and Grandpa Lenhardt's a couple weeks ago. Kari and the girls were down so the kids had a blast. They played and played, Ashlyn was super tired that night. :)

A couple weekends ago Mom and Ed came up and stayed with Ashlyn on Sat night so Jered and I could have an overnight date. We had the best time! We stayed in Portland at the White Eagle Hotel, its another McMenamins property. It supposed to be haunted but we didn't see any ghosts. Though Jered tried to trick me by rattling the bathroom door handle. The bathrooms are down the hall (shared bathrooms) and I thought he was in the room, not roaming the halls! :)

We started out by going downtown to the food carts to get lunch. We went to a place called the DumpTruck first. They had recently been on the food channel and Jered really wanted to their cheeseburger dumpling. It was pretty tasty! Next we got some handmade asian spicy noodles. YUM!  Then we went to our favorite gelato place on NW 23rd called Alotto Gelato. They had my favorite, pistachio! YUMMY!! Next up we drove over to the East side and decided to have a margarita at Casa del Matador. They definitely know how to make a good marg! We had a Groupon for a place next door to our hotel called Mint/820. We had been there once before a few months ago and it was really good! The owner is a mixologist (yes that's a real word) and she's known around the country for her cocktails. I love the pineapple jalapeno margarita! Its spicy but not too spicy, believe me its really good. I also tried the avocado daiquiri, I wasn't too impressed with that one. I rarely send anything back at a restaurant (I waitress-ed in college) but when you're payine $9 for a drink I think its valid. The waitress was really nice about it too. We shared an appetizer, crab cakes and split a really yummy cheeseburger for our dinner. We were both still pretty full from our lunch.

The next morning we wanted have to breakfast before we went home. So we tried Pine State Biscuits and kept right on driving past it. The line was out the door and wrapped around the block. Next choice was Tasty n Sons. There was a line but not as long so we decided to stay. They served us coffee and bloody mary's while we waited! The food was SO good! I would definitely go back, the next time I want to drive to the East side to eat breakfast. ;)

Jered is playing softball again with the some people from his old job. He's played with the same group for quite a few years now. Its definitely beer-league softball! Ashlyn and I have made his last few games and they have a lot of fun! She just likes being outside and running around! She yells and cheers for Daddy every time he's up to bat!

This weekend we went to Great Wolf Lodge with some friends and their kids. It was our first time but our friends have been quite a few times so they knew where all the good stuff was. It was the most fun we've had since I don't remember when. Seriously, Ashlyn LOVED it! We were afraid she wouldn't be in to the wave pool and we were pretty sure she wouldn't do the slides. We were SO wrong! We couldn't keep her out of the wave pool! When we would finally convince her to go to the slides, she wanted to do them over and over and over. Mom and Dad definitely got some exercise this weekend, those slides come with A LOT of stairs! :) Ashlyn went down every slide they had, multiple times, except the tornado/cyclone one, she wasn't tall enough (thank goodness because that was the only one Mom didn't want to go down!). She was barely tall enough for the other slides. They measured her and gave her a special wrist band so she wouldn't have to measure every time she wanted to do a slide. We told her she needed to stand really tall and stretch her neck up as high as she could, she just skated through at 42". :) I don't have many pictures, we were having too much fun in the water to be taking pictures, but if you haven't been yet, I suggest you go ASAP! Ashlyn is still wearing her bracelet, she's afraid when we go back they won't know its ok for her to be there. We'll definitely be planning another trip after the first of the year and hopefully we'll convince Ashlyn to take off her bracelet between now and then! ;)

Here's a few pics from the Pony lesson:

 This is my horse Smokey. I'm introducing myself

 I'm so happy to be on a real horse! And Smokey was

just my size!

 Giving Smokey a big hug after a great ride!

This is a story Ashlyn told to her teacher.

They had went to the library and Ashlyn

repeated her version of the story they

had heard from the librarian.

Not sure how well you can see this

but its pretty cool that she could remember

all of that!

Wedding weekend palooza!

I'm exhausted!!! Ashlyn is exhausted!! Jered is exhausted!! We had a four day wedding palooza in Monroe. One of my favorite little cousins got married on Friday. Well I guess she's not that little anymore, she's 24 with a 2 year old of her own! A wedding in the Ballard family means visiting relatives. We had family in from Wisconsin and North Carolina. The bride had family in from Reno and Ohio and friends in from South Carolina (I've never been called ma'am so many times!). It was a family filled weekend!

We drove down on Thurs after work and as soon as we got there we started working on wedding appetizers. Friday morning it was time to start decorating! They got married at the same place Jered and I got married. Such a beautiful venue! Once the ceremony was over it was time to make sure things ran smoothly. Jered and I were refilling waters, making sure the salad bowls were full, etc. After it was time for clean up. It was a whirl wind! I know there were lots of people that helped behind the scenes with our wedding and I just want to say another big THANK YOU!! Its a lot of work! ;)

All weekend we were up till 2 or 3 am. Ashlyn was up till 11pm a couple of nights, yikes! We went wine tasting (of course), we had bbq's, we went swimming, we had a bonfire. It was a very fun tiring weeeknd.

Ashlyn got to play with her cousin Arie from Wisconsin. They were thick as thieves all weekend. They even had a slumber party on Sat night. Arie is just 2 weeks older than Ashlyn. They're both bossy as can be but they got along great. There were only a couple of fights and tears. Mostly there was lots of play and giggling!

 Grammy and Grandpa in the photo booth with

their three granddaughters

Mommy and Daddy

 the happy couple "tying the knot"

 me with the bride's little sister Kourtney

me with the bride, Ashley

 Ashlyn and Arie having a water toast

Cheers!

 relaxing

 playing in the pool, the raft was their "island"

I love this picture of Ashlyn. She is having SO

much fun!

4th of July, Family and Fun

We had such a great week camping in Florence at Honeyman! We got over there on Wed afternoon and Ashlyn hit the ground running. She really pushed her boundaries this year. There were many trips to the park with her cousins, she ate lots of marshmallows, we walked in the parade, we stayed up late, it was pretty awesome! One of my cousins counted 161 family members. Yep, 161! Crazy, I know. All of my mom's brothers and sisters were there and almost all of my cousins. We went to the lake a couple of times, I even swam out to the dock. Jered tells me its a yearly tradition to do it at least once. We celebrated two anniversaries at the coast. My Aunt Gwenda and Uncle Louie: 57 years! and my Auntie Andi and Uncle Rick: 35 years!!

So I was a total loser and forgot my camera this camping trip. Most of these pics were taken with my cell phone or I stole them off Facebook so I don't have as many as I'd like:

 I found this one on Jered's phone. 

Him and one of his co-workers at one of his job sites

This is just a small portion of Grandma and Grandpa Lenhardt's yard.

I'm constantly talking about it and now you can see it. Next time

I'll take a picture of the garden. This is where we get all the yummy 

vegetables and fruits, baked goods etc and all of our flower baskets.

 Ashlyn's first concert: Old Crow Medicine Show at the Zoo.

It was HOT but we had a great time!

 Packed and ready for camping! We didn't forget anything!!

 Ashlyn and Paisley after the parade

I couldn't get both of them to look at the same time!

 Playing at the lake with Paisley.

 That's Krissy and baby Ivan in the background. 

The Ballard's

back row: Uncle Bob, Aunt Jean, Aunt Judy, Uncle Gary

front row: my mom, Uncle Rick, Uncle David, Aunt Gwenda and Uncle Jerry

VBS and Singles Week

SUCCESS!!!

We all did great during our singles week! Ashlyn had a blast at Grammy and Grandpa's house. She went to two birthday parties, five days of VBS, played with her numerous cousins, went swimming, shopping with Grammy and who knows what else! 

Jered and I went out every night, yep every night! We met friends downtown for dinner, met some other friends out at Edgefield one night after work, we tried new restaurants and we went to two weddings. It was a whirl wind of a week but we really enjoyed ourselves. We were exhausted at the end of the week!

I'll admit though there were quite a few times when I really missed her and wished I could give her a squeeze. She on the other hand really didn't have much time for us. We talked to her every night and she would talk for a few minutes and then it would be, "ok bye, love you!"

Here's a few pics, mostly taken off Facebook:

 having fun with Paisley at her birthday party. 

These two are little bff's in the making!

 Ashlyn in the front row in the orange dress with
her VBS class

being silly!

 coloring in class

last day of class, same orange dress :)

 at one of the two weddings we went to. In the Gorge, 

90 degrees, everyone was a little shiny!

one of our nights out, dressed to impress

 so happy to have her back!

she was TIRED after her week away

We leave Wed morning for 4th of July Honeyman camping. We are SO excited! This is our big camping trip every year. We've been "staging" in the back room for a week now with all of our camping essentials, groceries and toys. I've been WinCo, Costco (twice), Albertsons (three, probably four times) and Target (at least twice). Today Ashlyn and I baked three different kinds of gluten free cookies. We did good ol' chocolate chip but fancied it up a little with some cream cheese and cornstarch to make them really fluffy and yummy. Brown butter, oatmeal, butterschotch and toffee chip came next and then last but not least peanut butter sandwich cookies with Nutella, marshmallow cream cheese frosting. Yep, I think we're ready!